Month: September 2010

This was a weird little experiment I was messing with back in September 2009… I meant to get a lot more samples than just WoW and LOTRO, but kind of lost interest after doing these first two.

In a new limited series here at Bio Break, we’re going to put the official forums of various MMOs to the test, pitting them against each other in a bizarre battle royale. My experiment was simply to go to the first page of a MMO’s general forum, scan through the first 25 posts, and take notes on what trends they were showing, how useful they seemed, and how far down into the gutter they’ve fallen. So let’s see what we see!

Judgment: WoW’s forums have been a cesspit of trolls, malcontents and whiners since just about forever, and the front page is a testiment to their neverending parade of complaints. Little to no moderation seems to be present as well.

Number of Non-Stickied Threads Where a Dev Comments: Unknown, not marked

Longest Non-Stickied Thread: “I Would Be Fired”, 12 pages (“I cannot imagine having the responsibility with several weeks notice of a shareholders meeting, and not only not being prepared, but not even showing up. This is the disrespect we were shown today with Turbine not posting their answers to the community’s questions.”)

Judgment: LOTRO players are notorious for their level of maturity as a community, and that shows here. Most all of these threads were simply questions or “what if?” speculations, with very little in terms of griping or sniping. This feels like a forum where I’d be comfortable posting a question or a thought and not getting torn to pieces.

Idiotic Twilight reference aside, what really amused me about this ad is that it says “Find Your Bella” — not “Find Your Edward”. So I’m guessing that this is marketed to guys, with the implied message of “Are you looking for a girl to bite to death during a solar eclipse? IMVU is your place, as long as you have feathered hair and can pretend to be a brooding vampire!”

My wife is in charge of the family finances, mostly because she has a knack with budgeting and debt reduction that I lack. We both agreed on a pretty straightforward budget that includes a bi-weekly “allowance” for each of us to use for non-family essentials (entertainment, lunches, etc.).

So today I go up and say, “I know you’re going to laugh at me, but could I get an advance on my next allowance to get Civilization V?”

She makes a face. “No. You want to know why?”

I sigh, ready for a lecture about our budget. “Okay, why?”

“Because if you want it, it’s yours. You don’t need to get an advance or anything. Enjoy!”

Huh… here is an example of “I have no idea what happened.” It’s a fully-written post that for some reason, never got published. This topic’s been done before and since, but here’s my take:

Time to take a break from the Fallen Earth Love Fest (don’t forget to buy your t-shirt at the Bio Break store, only $19.99!) to look at a game that doesn’t get a lot of talk around these here parts: EVE Online. Now my personal history with EVE is fairly anemic — I did a couple of free trials, and subbed for one month, but it just never took hold with me. I found space to be too big, the activities too boring, and the game way too complex (even though they’ve been working hard at making it more accessible for newbies).

But what’s always intrigued me about EVE is that it has absolutely bucked the trend of MMOs in terms of subscribers. Most online games release to as big of an audience as possible, and try to retain as many of them as possible from month two on, hopefully adding enough people to keep steady (or increase somewhat) as others drop away. Because many online gamers have become restless, picky and more prone to pulling up stakes and wandering away than ever before (which is aided by more choices on the market than ever before), one a MMO has shot through its release month, a downhill slide is all but inevitable. Sure, expansions, releases in other countries and surprise course changes (i.e. DDO) may put the subs on a severe uptick, but it’s mostly damage control. MMOs tend to shrink over time.

Except for EVE, which has grown. Grown every year since launch, in fact, hitting the 300,000 mark on May 6 of this year (starting at 244,000 in January). 300K is a very respectable number for a newly launched MMO, but for a six-year-old game that isn’t World of Warcraft? It’s practically amazing. As MMORPG said:

Regardless of what the future might hold for this game and its franchise, it has solidified its place in the MMO history books by defying the trend in MMO subscribers, especially for an independent project. Generally speaking, the number of subscribers that any given MMORPG sports is at or near its peak soon after launch. From there, it’s a question of retention, with the scale fluctuating slightly throughout the life of the game but generally trending in the downward direction.

With EVE Online, the opposite has been true. Each year, the game has grown in population (paid subscribers) from the year before so that six years after its launch, it is still a thriving MMO in a very difficult and competitive market.

My question is, how has EVE bucked this trend? What’s their secret recipe? And how might other MMOs learn from their gradual success, a game “with legs” as one might say? I’m no expert, but here’s a few of the factors that might have helped:

1. EVE started small and was self-published

There’s no doubt that CCP has done amazing things with EVE, and it enjoys a luxury many MMOs do not — the independence from a publisher’s meddling hand. Instead, EVE launched without the huge amount of hype and fanfare that we expect out of big-budget titles today, and it was all done in house. 50,000 players was all it needed to keep the dev team funded and working, and from a small but solid start it grew gradually — avoiding the dangers of day one overpopulation and crashed servers as well.

2. EVE continuously reinvented itself

EVE’s had a vast array of updates and expansions, several of which have overhauled the graphics (updated for 2009 sensibilities) and retuned the game to make it slightly more friendly and accessible to newcomers.

3. EVE’s players became their marketing team

CCP relied more on word-of-mouth to sell the game than massive ad campaigns, a strategy that seems to have worked. If one was to judge a MMO solely based on the blogs that players created to discuss it, it’d be easy to assume that EVE was one of the top three titles in the world. Players are absolutely rabid about this game, reveling in its brutal cutthroat world and no-nonsense complexity. For many of the players, there’s simply nothing else like EVE on the market, and they’re fanatical in promoting it.

4. EVE had a monopoly on the space-scifi market

With Earth & Beyond out of the way years previous, and no other major space science fiction MMOs out there, it was EVE or… EVE for any players looking to fly their own ship around the galaxy. Even with SWG’s Jump to Lightspeed expansion, EVE still dominated with depth and breadth of content.

Of course, after writing all this I did a bit of Googling, only to find out that both Massively and Kotaku wrote on this same subject, just without all the typos and hidden anagram swear words (kids, see if you can find them at home!). So, I have learned a lesson as a blogger: don’t write on anything, because someone’s done it first.

Sype grabbed his staff and waved it threateningly. “Go away, boy. I’m not that desperate for cash.”

“And there’s this widow nearby he’s been courting…”

The old man stabbed at the ground where the messenger’s foot stood a moment before, sending a plume of dust into the air. “So he’s a Peeping Tom stalker, so what? Tell him to apply for a character position in one of Stephanie Meyer’s novels.”

“And the Committee wants you to facilitate their courtship by being a matchmaker.”

Sype was quiet for a minute, and then uttered five words that turned the messenger into a hedgehog. The opened letter fluttered to the ground.

“I think I’ll name you ‘Werit’,” he said. “Now, in my pocket you go, and let’s see if we can match you up with a hungry wolf. Matchmaker, my patootie.”

He raised the bottle to his mouth, but lowered it without taking a drink as a thought popped into his mind. “Hm,” he said. “Hmm. Love may be in the cards after all…”

* * *

From the Desk of Constable Bolger, Staddle Bounder Department

The 28th of September, 3018

At approx. 4:10 p.m., the widow Foghorn contacted SBD in a state of terrible anxiety. An unknown assailant coated the front of her doorway with splashed pigs blood, and then used some of the blood to write by finger “IM COMING FOUR YOU ASPHODEL” on the nearby wall.

Upon further inspection, dog tracks were seen in the mud outside of the door coming from the direction of Eldo Swatmidge’s home. We asked, and received, permission to inspect his home, and found a slaughtered pig in the back yard. Suspect denies being involved, although witnesses claim that Mr. Swatmidge has been seen walking by the Foghorn residence multiple times every day.

Suspect placed under formal arrest and shipped off to Brockenborings for trial. Having no nearby friends or family to take in his dog, SBD contacted animal control who unfortunately had to put down the distressed beast.

Widow is suffering from stress migraines and nervous tics. Recommend a unit patrol around Foghorn’s farm for the next week just in case.

This botched article is an example of an idea I that never really materialized, and I could never really get a handle on. I was thinking of how difficult it was for developers to make games for a widely diverse range of players, and wondered if they lump us in simplistic categories. On one hand, I like dissecting and analyzing things, but on the other, I don’t like to be shoved into a category and think I should resist doing that to others. Anyway, here it is!

As the MMORPG genre continues to evolve and grow, three audiences for these titles are coming into their own as desired demographics who sometimes have wildly different playstyles and needs. Not to peg anyone into just one of these categories, but here’s how I see it:

The Youth Audience

Here’s where a bulk of 6 to 18-year-olds reside: living at home with parents, dependent on them for income (unless you’re an industrious person and get a job, which I’m seeing a lot less of in teens around here lately). They typically have access to a computer (sometimes their own, sometimes shared), and can invest a decent amount of time into a MMO on the whole.

This audience is generally less impressed with complexity and depth, and more on graphics, visuals and the coolness factor. We’ve seen a huge uptick in developers trying to capture this market with kid- and family-friendly titles like Wizard101, Free Realms, FusionFall and pretty much every Facebook app on the planet.

The Hardcore Audience

This audience can range in age from 14 to well into the 30’s and above, as long as they have decent disposable income and copious amounts of free time. The combination of those two factors create the spawning ground for a hardcore gamer who is able to put in more time into a MMO than any other market. Here’s where a bulk of the raiders and vanguard players reside.

These gamers are content-devourers, chewing up whatever devs can make faster than it’s being made. They’re pretty loyal to one title (where all of their time is poured in to becoming the best of the best), although some have so much free time that they can spread the love out between multiple games and excel in all of them.

The Grownup Casual Audience

This is the next destination for gamers who take on added interests and responsibilities in life — demanding jobs, marriage, kids, other hobbies — and yet who still love MMOs and play them fairly regularly. They just can’t do so with the time and intensity of the first two audiences. While they appreciate the complexity of more advanced games, they demand that those titles make allowances for the fac that not everyone can game 40 hours a week, or in 8 hour blocks of time.

These gamers value their limited time, and want to spend whatever time they’re logged in doing something fun and productive. They might or might not reach the level cap, they might or might not raid, but it’s no longer the most important aspect of their MMO gameplay. They value the social aspect more, and might be more prone to trying out different games without feeling as if they’re falling behind the pack.

Stereotypes: Love ‘Em!

Okay, those are all over-generalizations that have loosely-defined borders that overlap and spill into each other. You might instantly want to rebut and tell me how you’re a combination of two or all three audiences, or how I forgot whatever, but putting you into a category wasn’t the point here. The point is that developers see these three audiences as potential subscribers who all have different amounts of play time, money and interests. They either craft these games specifically for one audience, or work extra hard to provide a little something for everyone.

Wizard101 is a terrific example of a game specifically made and marketed for the youth audience, but it then experienced a great cross-audience appeal with adults as well — and took advantage of that with their family subscription pricing. Free Realms is a bit of the opposite — they wanted to capture the entire family market, young and old, but its focus on minigames and overly simplified MMO-ness has turned off a lot of adults I’ve talked to (although they’re certainly not hurting for players/subscribers, no sirree).

The paradigm for MMO audiences isn’t just hardcores vs. casuals, it’s hardcores, casuals, adults, youth, simple and complex. People don’t fit neatly into a certain-sized hole, and while in the past MMORPG choices were so few that everyone either had to adapt to that style or simply not play, nowadays there’s literally a game for every level of interest, playtime, complexity and style. Some of the newer MMOs deliberately cater to a more specific niche, refusing to generalize, while others see how successful MMOs are that offer a bit of something for everyone and do away with specialization.